A Real First

Admit it — never in your entire life did you ever subscribe to a magazine because someone wrote a review of it and called it boring. Well, I just did. The magazine is Bicycle Times. Its focus is everyday riding, commuting, family riding, and touring. Here’s what Andrew Hartsock had to say about it:

A cursory glance showed it had gear reviews, odes to commuting, reader submissions, how-to articles and the like. In other words, it seemed perfect for a bike-commute geek like me.

About 20 minutes into what was to be a leisurely one-hour ride on the trainer in the basement, I had mowed through more than half of the magazine, and my enthusiasm had cooled considerably.

There wasn’t anything terribly wrong with the magazine. I gleaned a tidbit here, a tip there, learned a little about rain gear.

But it dawned on me that reading about bike commuting is even more dull than … bike commuting itself.

And I’m a big fan of bike commuting.

Hmmmmm…

Well, OK. Now I’m curious.

I also want to be supportive. And I’m thinking there ought to be a place for a bicycling magazine that resists the sport-cycling culture. Does it resist that culture? We’ll see.

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Comments 7

  1. robert wrote:

    Here is another one for your pleasure.

    We received free copies at the bike summit. That was the first I had heard of it.

    Posted 07 Apr 2009 at 1:33 pm
  2. robert wrote:

    Darn it!

    Here it is…

    http://www.momentumplanet.com/

    Posted 07 Apr 2009 at 1:34 pm
  3. Andy Cline wrote:

    Robert… Cool. Giving that one a try, too.

    Posted 07 Apr 2009 at 5:22 pm
  4. alexander wrote:

    interesting that he think bike commuting is boring…

    Posted 08 Apr 2009 at 12:31 pm
  5. Andy Cline wrote:

    Alex… Yes. I found that a bit odd, too.

    Posted 08 Apr 2009 at 12:39 pm
  6. Cordelia wrote:

    He was riding a *stationary bike* in his *basement* ? Well, no wonder he was bored by the magazine if what he was doing was more interesting than, you know, actually riding somewhere.
    PS Does this comments section allow html tags ? Some italics are called for here !

    Posted 08 Apr 2009 at 5:43 pm
  7. Andy Cline wrote:

    Cordelia… Good question re: html tags. Let me check my preferences. I’ll get back to you.

    Posted 08 Apr 2009 at 6:00 pm